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Hi, I have the following situation. I have two models Item and Genre.
A Item has a name and a description. The genres-table contains a list
of possible genres wich can be associated to items. So a Item could be
associated with many genres and a genre could be associated with many
items. A typically n:m-relationship. I use the :has_many-:through
association, because i want do to a kind of on-delete-cascade in
Rails.
My models look as follows:
class Item < ActiveRecord::Base
# n:m relationship between items and genres
has_many :items_genres, :dependent => :destroy
has_many :genres, :through => :items_genres
validates_presence_of :name
validate :must_have_at_least_one_associated_genre
protected
# valdation to ensure, that a item has at least one associated genre
def must_have_at_least_one_associated_genre
# add an error message to the default error messages
errors.add(:genres, "must_be_choosen") if
# if no genre is associated with this item
genres.size <= 0
end
end
I put two validations to the Item. The statement at line 6 make the
name arrtibute mandatory. In addition I would to ensure that a item
has at least one associated genre. So I decided to write a own
validation-method (line 10-17).
class ItemsGenre < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :item
belongs_to :genre
end
class Genre < ActiveRecord::Base
# n:m relationship between genres and items
has_many :items_genres, :dependent => :destroy
has_many :items, :through => :items_genres
end
I added some unit-tests to ensure that the validation works as
aspected. I wrote the following unit-test-methods.
require 'test_helper'
class ItemTest < ActiveSupport::TestCase
def test_should_create_an_item
item = Item.new(
:name => "Item-Name",
:description => "Item-Description"
)
# Assert, that the item is not valid and cannot be saved,
# because there are no genres associated with it
assert !item.valid?
assert !item.save
# Associate two genres with this item
item.genres = Genre.find_all_by_id([genres(:club).id, genres
(:commedy).id])
# Assert, that the item is now valid and can be saved
assert item.valid?
assert item.save
# Check if there are two genres associated with this item
assert_equal 2, item.genres.size
end
def test_should_require_name
# Create an item-object, but set name nil
item = Item.new(
:name => nil,
:description => "Item-Description"
)
# Assert, that the item is not valid and cannot be saved,
# because the name is nil
assert !item.valid?
assert !item.save
end
def test_should_require_description
# Create an item-object, but set name to nil
item = Item.new(
:name => "Item-Name",
:description => nil
)
# Assert, that the item is not valid and cannot be saved,
# because the description is nil
assert !item.valid?
assert !item.save
end
end
The amazing thing is that all tree test-methods pass. But I only have
a validation for the name and the asscociated genres. I do not have a
validation of the description, but the test method for the description
passes.
I found out another thing. If I remove the validate-call in line 8 of
the Item-model, then all test-methods work as aspected.
In this case the test_should_create_an_item- and the
test_should_require_description-method both fail and the
test_should_require_name-method passes.
If I run the application and try to add a new item by the new-form,
all validation works as exspected. So it seems that only the unit-test
are faulty.
I am at a loss. I don´t know what I am doing wrong. Can anyone
reproduce this behavior? Or can anyone tell me how to write a
validation-method to ensure that at least one genre is associated with
an item. Maybe my test-method is wrong.
I hope someone can help me out.

On Apr 28, 9:25 am, zeto <removed_email_address@domain.invalid> wrote:
> assert !item.save> end>> end>> The amazing thing is that all tree test-methods pass. But I only have> a validation for the name and the asscociated genres. I do not have a> validation of the description, but the test method for the description> passes.
In your test that description should be required you haven't created
any genres, so even though you have no validation for description the
validation on genres being present makes the item fail to save.
Fred

If I understand correctly you are saying that
test_should_require_description is passing when it should fail. The
fact
that it passes appears to mean that the item is not valid. The question
is
why is it not valid? It may be that
must_have_at_least_one_associated_genre
is failing. I would check that first. You could just remove this
validation to eliminate it.
2009/4/28 zeto <removed_email_address@domain.invalid>

If I comment out the validation
"validate :must_have_at_least_one_associated_genre" in line 8 of my
Item-model all test methods work correctly. That means only the
test_should_require_name -test-method passes the test.
test_should_create_an_item --> fails, because the validation in
line 8 of my Item-model is commented out
test_should_require_description --> fails, because there is no
validation for description yet
Of course the failure is somewhere in the
must_have_at_least_one_associated_genre-method in the Item-model, but
I cannot figure out where the failure is.